Crypto exchanges! Short list species

When coming to buy exotic tokens or coins like those just released, there are a few options not very handy.

The big ones as ETH/BTC/LTC can be purchased easily with USD/EUR/GBP etc via services like Revolut, Coinflux or Coinbase and a bunch more.

But what about the others?

There are big centralised exchanges like Bittrex or Binance where you can find most popular tokens or coins (usually they list only those with relevant volume). Note that you need ETH, BTC or USDt (this is not USD) to purchase other coins. If you want to start with USD/EUR directly on a big trade, Kraken is one that supports USD/EUR.

The way centralised exchanges work: you create an account, activate all the security options, submit your ID to get validated as a real person and you are good to go. You’ll get wallet addresses (owned by the exchange) for each token they list.

But there is one more thing: new tokens just unlocked after an ICO and I really need them.

If they are Ethereum ERC20 type you might be lucky, because there are decentralised exchanges (DEx). There you don’t need any account or documents, just a wallet you own already (json, private key, metamask or on the spot wallet creation within the DEx). They are actually normal smart contracts, running on Ethereum EVM and mediating safe token exchange between wallets.

While the concept is great, finding one that actually works, having volume and list quickly any new unlocked token it’s hard.

Etherdelta used to be the greatest one, having volume and trading instantly any unlocked token (you can use the smart contract address in the url directly if the token is not listed, as in the example below):

https://etherdelta.com/#0x5adc961d6ac3f7062d2ea45fefb8d8167d44b190-ETH

Recently, Etherdelta is barely working or not working at all, also the volume is much lower than it used to be.

One functional alternative is the ForkDelta (exactly the same app behind), but there is no volume, as it didn’t catch up yet. The interface is identical and having less bugs and lags compared to Etherdelta.

A new competitor for them is Idex.market. While interface is better and has a decent volume, it has technical issues when high volume of transactions happens (I got headache while trying to trade Bee tokens — didn’t manage to trade but managed to deposit and withdraw them).

To do an actual trade on these markets (DEx types), you usually sign two transaction to deposit the token or ETH (they will be moved from your personal wallet to the Dex smart contract). Once deposited you can trade them against ETH or the other way around. For ex DTH-ETH, ETH-DTH, DADI-ETH. You can’t trade DTH-DADI directly. Once traded, you can withdraw the tokens or ETH from the DEX smart contract back to your wallet.

Note that every step (deposit/trade/withdraw) consumes Gas or fees, so it’s not worth for low volume. Also, you might want to do deposits and withdrawals with higher Gwei values (50+) because these DEx smart contracts tend to be slow and busy.

A new category of descentralised trades is on the way (as Kyber.Network or Bancor), with great UX/UI and stability, but a limited list of tokens for now (hopefully they’ll list more in the future).

How about the Nep-5 NEO tokens? As some great projects like Apex and Bridgeprotocol are doing the ICO using the NEO network instead of Ethereum, their tokens can’t be exchanges on Etherdelta of IdexMarket.

For now, all you can do is to wait for centralised exchanges to list them after the ICO is concluded. This takes weeks to months, as the exchange will decide what and when to list.

Hopefully the situation will change soon for Nep-5, as a great project called Neonexchange is on the way. This will be a DEx for Nep-5 tokens, similar to Etherdelta. Yeeeeey.

In conclusion:

• You can buy ETH/BTC/LTC/ETC easily with a bunch of easy to use services or mobile apps
• You can trade ETH or BTC to other popular coins or tokens using big centralised exchanges like Binance
• You can trade any unlocked ERC20 tokens using decentralised exchanges like Forkdelta
• You will hopefully able to trade soon any Nep-5 unlocked tokens using Neonexchange